Umpires & the Swans

[No 14]

Statistics are pretty obvious ... ever since Gieschen (the umpires boss) apparently made comments that umpires should protect ball getters like Judd, Kerr and Cousinns and coupled at the time with Demetriou's comments on the Swans style of play we rarely get the "frees for - frees against" equation in our favour.

My beef is the 50/50 calls. I was at the game last night and don't begrudge some of the 50/50 calls that the saints got - but we just don't seem to get our fair share - there were some shockers on the docklands wing (in the backs, gang tackles that resulted in ball ups instead of dropping the ball as happened on the city wing against us, etc).

If you assume each free gives the team 2 clear possessions totalling, say, 60 metres a difference of 9 frees last night and every game is significant. In 2007 we had the 2nd worst "frees for - frees against" equation

The umpires last night were Michael Vozzo (2), Shaun Ryan (25), Scott Jeffery (29). Let's keep an eye on which umpires miss the 50/50's.

How do we get the AFL and Gieschen to ensure that our ball getters are just as deserved as Judd etc.

[Swansinger]

Maybe keep an eye on those umpires who didnt see the Saints attempt at ripping Bazza's head off last night.
How that was missed , I do not know , especially as he did not duck into it.

[2005]

Maybe keep an eye on those umpires who didnt see the Saints attempt at ripping Bazza's head off last night.
How that was missed , I do not know , especially as he did not duck into it.

Because he isnt Nick Riewoldt !!!
How soft was the free against B2 late in the last quarter.

[liz]

Because he isnt Nick Riewoldt !!!
How soft was the free against B2 late in the last quarter.

Gee, I think I hate the "chopping the arms" rule even more than "HITB". Or at least, I hate the current interpretation of it. I have no problem with a player getting pinged if his sole intention is to chop the arms and he's making no attempt to spoil or mark the ball. But in that case Bolton arguably got to the drop of the ball slightly ahead of Riewoldt and it was a genuine and realistic attempt to spoil. Yet because their arms clashed in the process, he was deemed to be chopping.

I got into quite a heated argument over that call with a Saints bloke sitting next to me. He seemed like a nice chap and our banter throughout the game was friendly and courteous. But we definitely saw that one differently!

Having said that, I didn't think the umpiring last night was particularly against us. There were a fair few "obvious" frees for the Saints that were missed, as well as some for us. And we got some softies too.

[ScottH]

Yeh, it is a fine distinction between chopping arms and punching at the ball, when many arms are in the air. It did get annoying the amount of times the pinged someone.
It also occurred many times in the Ruck contests aswell, which seemed to be new, or maybe just more enforced than previous years.

[mcs]

I thought the umpiring overall was ok last night, but I just got pissed off over how many frees there were and how many were soft ones that could of been let go.
Shaun Ryan has yet and never will imo umpire a swans game well. He crucified us at least 4 times last season- the first game of the season against West Coke he was absolutely disgustingly bad I think that night and he never improved all year!